STRAW DOGS

UK, 1971,118 minutes, Colour.
Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, David Warner, Peter Vaughan, Ken Hutchison, T. P. Mc Kenna.
Directed by Sam Peckinpah.

Straw Dogs has been both highly acclaimed and strongly denounced. It is a film about violence, able to be appreciated by those who recognise what it is trying to do, relished in an ugly way by those who can't see beyond actual scenes of carnage.

The film was made by Sam Peckinpah, his only film not a western so far. Peckinpah has been preoccupied with violence and moral responsibility- The Wild Bunch and The Getaway are instances. He seems to imply that we say things about violence and morality but that our own behaviour is different. Straw Dogs poses questions about men who claim they are non-violent, who are threatened personally and in their principles by violence, who defend themselves by violence and then find that they are pleased with their violent accomplishment. In this way the film can have quite an uncomfortable message for us all. Dustin Hoffman is good in the role of the American seeking old-world tranquility in rural England only to find that the viciousness of the west is there as well. A mixture of western and English horror conventions, Straw Dogs seems to be a classic of violence and revelation of a man's appetite for violence.

1. 'Straw Dogs" were ancient sacrificial substitutes. Does this help to explain the title of the film and its meaning?

2. Was the film too horrible and its violence unnecessary or did it make sense? Some English critics wanted it banned. What were your reactions?

3. Sam Peckinpah makes westerns. How similar was this film to a western - a modern western set in England?

4. How was the atmosphere of the Cornwall village created? How did Cornwall contrast with our images of America, suggested by David's presence there?

5. Why had David come to England? Was he right to drop out of the violent American rat-race?

6. Was David out of place or at ease in Cornwall? As an academic, a pacifist?

7. What kind of man was he - a coward, decent and trusting, representative of the common man of our time? Why?

8. Why had he married Amy? Did he love her and she him?

9. Comment on Venner, Scutt and the workmen - as persons, their good, evil, vindictiveness.

10. Tom Hedden - crude, cruel, drunk, asserting power, hatred of Henry Wiles?

11. What did Henry Miles represent? Was he dangerous? Why?

12. Comment and give examples of the growing atmosphere of menace?

13. The Major, barkeeper, Rev. Hood and his wife, the concert and celebrations -did these indicate some air of normality?

14. Comment on the sequences of the rape and David hunting in the hills.

15. How horrible was the fanatical drinking to a lynching frenzy?

16. The siege - was it credible? Give your emotional response.

17. What was David defending? How did he and his house identify? Why did he defend Henry Miles?

18. How did the siege transform David, for better or for worse?

19. David's smile as he drove Henry Wiles back? This smile as the final image? What was your response to it and its meaning?

20. What value is there in a film like this - entertainment, education, vicarious violence? Sadistic enjoyment? Was the violence generally realistic or stylised?